771. People and government.—This region was well settled by cattle-keeping, grain growing blacks when the first white settlers came. Even yet there are four blacks to one white person. Cape Town and the region near the tip end of South Africa have many British people, but the Dutch were the first white settlers. A great many of the white people of the interior are Dutch and are called Boers, a Dutch word that means farmer.
In 1910, the four British colonies of Cape of Good Hope, Natal, Orange Free State, and Transvaal formed the Union of South Africa, very much as the Canadian colonies formed the Dominion of Canada. It is really a kind of United States of South Africa, with its capital at Cape Town.
772. Another Abyssinia.—The highest part of the South African plateau is a high, rugged region about the size of Maryland and is called Basutoland. This is the best part of South Africa for grass-growing and for grain. Its four hundred thousand black people are almost independent; they are farmers, and raise sheep, cattle, corn, Kafir corn, and wheat.
In 1883, the Basuto army defeated a Brit ish army, and, though victorious, they had the surprising wisdom to sue for peace at once. They permitted the British to have the appearance of victory by accepting a British commissioner as their governor, who serves as a kind of governor-general to the Basuto chiefs. They kept for themselves the real fruit of victory—that of getting the white men to agree not to settle in their country. The only white people there are connected with the government, or are traders or mis sionaries. When the first British governor came to take charge, the Basutos met him at their boundary and escorted him to the capital with a guard of ten thousand armed men, each mounted on a good horse.
773. Gold and diamonds.—In 1867 a set tler's wife near the Vaal River was dressing a chicken one day and found a diamond in the chicken's crop. This is said to have been the incident that led to the discovery of great beds of clay containing diamonds. Then arose Kimberley, a city now having 50,000 people, and from the mines near the city come 98% of all the diamonds in the world, $60,000,000 worth each year. The Kimber ley diamond companies have united into a trust that sets the price, and decides how many diamonds shall be sold.
At Johannesburg in the Transvaal is the greatest gold-mining region in the world. Long ridges of sandstone rocks have enough gold in them to make it pay to dig mines a mile deep. Johannesburg was founded in 1886, and had 100,000 people ten years later. It has grown faster than Winnipeg, Mani toba, and is now the largest city of South Africa. Mining is by far the most important
industry in South Africa.
The gold and diamond mines are owned by the English; some of the engineers who plan the work are Americans; but nearly all the work is done by natives who comedown from the hotter parts of Africa to work for a time in the mines, and who then go back, each with a bag of money.
774. Trade.—Most of the trade of South Africa is with Great Britain, Holland, and the United States. Gold and diamonds stand far above all other exports. Next come wool, mohair, skins from the ranches, meat from the packing plants, and ostrich feathers from the farms where ostriches are kept to supply these ornamental plumes. Since the ostrich cannot fly, it can be kept in a field surrounded by a wire fence, where it may be fed grass and grain. (Fig. 530.) This is a new country, like West Canada, but it does not export much grain because only a small part of the country has rainfall enough to make it a good grain country. South Africa imports clothes, machinery, and sometimes wheat.
775. Future.—South Africa will be pros perous as long as the mines of gold and dia monds hold out. After that, its prosperity can be continued by scientific agriculture. Irrigation is needed, but the necessary water is hard to find. Terrible droughts sometimes starve the sheep and cattle on the veldt. The future prosperity of South Africa lies in some kind of dry farming. Perhaps the crop will be olives (Sec. 556). Wild olive trees grow over most of its area, inviting man to make of them a crop.
stretches along the west coast to about lati tude 11°. For a thousand miles no permanent stream enters the sea. The trade wind blow ing over the land helps, as in the Sahara, to make it dry and hot, but the desert part is very much smaller than the Great Desert. Like the Sahara, it has a river crossing it from the lands of greater rain, but, unlike the Nile, the Orange River has but little water. The Kalahari Desert is not so dry as the Sahara. Most of it has something • that ani mals can eat at some season. There are wide stretches of scattered bushes, and also salt plains that are covered with water at times of occasional rain. The greatest difficulty in using this land is the absence of drinking water for months at a time.
777. The native life.—Several tribes of black people live in this country. Most of them are nomadic followers of flocks. Unlike the Arabs of the north, they have no camels —only goats, cattle, and fat-tailed sheep. One of the tribes, the Bushmen, keeps no animals at al!, but hunts game at water holes. The Bushmen are ignorant People,